


Memories from a Past Life

by Aeternus_Flamma



Category: New World Magischola (Live-Action Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Baja Province, Evil eye, Mishupishu Province, NWM4, P2A4, Swindlehurst, Wizard School Snippets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7851670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aeternus_Flamma/pseuds/Aeternus_Flamma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people say that when you're faced with a near death experience, your life flashes before your eyes. For Cassandra Schaefer, there are very few memories worth replaying. For many years, she thought she was happy with her reclusive life and frequently boasted about her lack of personal connections. Unfortunately, she learned far too late that there was more to life than living for her work. </p><p>[This is a series of snippets which revolve around Cassandra Schaefer, who is a character loosely tied to NWM4. No where in the Run 4 did the name Cassandra Schaefer appear, however if you know how she ties into another NWM4 character, I ask that you keep it to yourself. It lessens the risk of meta gaming in future runs! Thank you!!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Age: 13

Cassandra stood before the imposing wooden door, clenching her jaw together so tightly she thought her teeth would crack. For the fourth time, she looked down at the red flyer in her hand and then back up at the door. There was absolutely no doubt that it was the right room—she could already hear the chaos inside. However, she hadn’t quite made up her mind on if she was going to enter yet.

Once more, she let her mind drift to the upcoming trial she was to face. Cassandra could have sworn that the more she thought about it, the more the flame she imaged felt real. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few moments before inhaling deeply and pushing the door open.

It took a few minutes before the loud, excited bunch even noticed that she had entered. She lurked along the edge of the room, looking over the group who had their backs to her. They were all watching as another student strutted through flames that were almost two yards high. The students clapped and he took a bow before raising his wand and swiftly extinguishing the flames.

As the crowd started to back away and clear some space, a trio of girls caught sight of Cassandra. They wasted no time plastering scowls to the faces and making a scene.

“Ew, what are _you_ doing here?” One of the girls, Cassandra thought her name was Lacy, sneered loudly, catching the rest of the room’s attention.

Most other preteen girls may have shrunk under the sudden attention, but Cassandra did not. Instead, she merely blinked and held up the red flyer. “This is the practice room for the trial, isn’t it? The one for mixed and mundane born?” Of course, it was an _unofficial_ practice room, because the school could never publicly condone separate practice areas for their students—at least, not anymore. “Well, I’m mixed. So I came to practice.”

Lacey’s friend crossed her arms and stuck her nose up at Cassandra. “Are you sure? You sure don’t act like one of us with the way you hang all over those Unsoiled snobs.” There were a few murmurs of agreement from around the girl—Rachelle maybe?—which only seemed to give her more encouragement. “Maybe you should ask _them_ for help.”

The truth was that Cassandra _had_ asked her Unsoiled friends. They had more or less patted her on the back and said that they were simply too busy practicing themselves. They couldn’t _possibly_ help her out too—but oh, by the way, they needed to review her most recent history report. Just to review for inaccuracies, of course.

Luckily, she had found a discarded flyer that had been passed around from student to student, passing word that a study group would be gathering to practice different ways to pass through flames unharmed. Cassandra knew that she was unwanted in the large, open classroom, which was likely why she had to find a flyer crumpled in the hallway rather than being handed one directly. Regardless, she figured it was worth stopping by anyhow. What would they do, kick her out?

Lacey was likely about to suggest that, but the boy who had been jumping through the flames stepped forward. He towered over the rest of the group—all twelve and thirteen year olds—with ease. Cassandra recognized him as an upper classman, though he wasn’t from her court so she didn’t know his name.

“C’mon guys, cut it out. She’s allowed to be here, so let’s just get started. You only have a month to practice, and I promise that it’s harder than it looks.” The upper classman waved his hands together, prompting everyone to take his signal to group up. Soon, there eleven pairs claiming a piece of the room for themselves—eleven pairs, and Cassandra.

The upper classman looked at her with a mix of annoyance and pity before nodding at her to join him. When she obediently crossed the room to join him, he loudly sighed at her.

“You missed the demonstration. I’ll do it again for you. My name is Stephen and I’ve been volunteered to conduct these sessions. I can show you how to cast the spell, but I can’t do much more than that. It’s against the rules for one of us to help you guys. Got it?”

Cassandra nodded and stepped back to clear the area that was already slightly sooty, despite Stephen’s best attempts to clean it. He mumbled an incantation to make flames rear to life in front of her. She decided to take one more step back, just in case. Stephen then cleared his throat dramatically before saying _Friggus Flamma_ , while swishing and jabbing his wand towards the flames.

As far as she could tell, there was no change. There was no indication that the spell had worked in the least, and the flames still licked at Stephen menacingly while he stepped into the center of circle he had created. He looked at her with a shrug. “See? Not too hard. You just need to practice.”

Fighting the urge to plaster a deep frown to her face, Cassandra nodded.

Sure. Just practice.

 

“So are you going to cast anything or just stare at everyone?”

Cassandra turned around, with her brows furrowed and lips pressed together in a thin line, and faced the boy speaking to her. She knew his name was Malcolm since they were in many classes, though she was sure that they had never spoken before. She also knew that he had already mastered the Cold Fire spell and didn’t need to continue coming to the practice sessions.

She shrugged. “I’ll do it when I’m ready.”

Malcolm crossed his arms and gave her look of disbelief. “And when’s that going to be? When you’re at the trial? You have a week, and you still haven’t tried to cast it yet.”

“I have tried, just not here.”

“Uh-huh. And how did that go?” Malcolm nodded down to her left arm. She could feel a blush creeping up her neck and cheeks as she hurried to pull her sleeve down further to cover her bandage. “The point of these meetings is so that everyone can get help.”

She opened her mouth to retort, but before she could, someone was calling Malcolm from across the room. He turned to give his friend a wave and looked back at her from over his shoulder.

“Seriously though. You should really at least try.”

And with that, he walked away again, leaving Cassandra to awkwardly pull at her bandage and contemplate leaving the practice session before it had even ended.

 

Just as she had in previous weeks, Cassandra lingered about the room. She took her time packing her things, and besides a few cool looks, she was ignored. Stephen even waved his wand to dim the glowing orbs that served as a light source, seemingly have failed to notice that she was still in the room. Though she had begun to raise her own wand to light them once more, someone had beaten her to it. She almost jumped when she turned to find Malcolm had slipped back into the room.

“Shouldn’t you be working on the paper due in Orwell’s class tomorrow?” Cassandra asked flatly, fighting to keep her expression impassive.

Malcolm waved at her in mild annoyance, “oh that? I finished that ages ago.”

She hummed and raised a brow at him.

“C’mon, like I would really write a paper?”

Cassandra shook her head and started to _actually_ pack her things. She wasn’t going to try and practice if someone was hanging around to watch her. “You should really at least try. They’ll eventually kick you out if your grades drop too low.”

“Yeah? Well, I bet you get kicked out for failing your trial before I get kicked out for poor grades. That’d be pretty pathetic wouldn’t it? Girl at the top of the class academically gets kicked out because she pass the trials—“

“Just leave me alone,” she snapped and shoved her notebook back into her bag. “I’m sure it’s funny to you, but it isn’t. It really isn’t.”

Malcolm fell silent long enough for her to start to cross the classroom to the door, but he stopped her before she could leave. “I’m not trying to be funny—or mean, or anything. I just thought… Well I thought you needed help. I’ve already mastered the spell. I can at least try to help. There aren’t many of us mixed here—we’ve got to try to stick together or those Unsoiled jerks will think they can rule the school.”

Cassandra stood with her hand on the handle, debating on whether or not she should walk out. In all honesty, the only reason she didn’t was because he was the first person to _ever_ offer to help her since she came to P2A4. Even the _professors_ didn’t offer a hand.

“If people find out how bad I am at casting, they’ll make fun of me,” Cassandra said with a sigh. “I already get that enough for my grades. I just… want to be left alone.”

Though the name calling typically didn’t get under her skin, even she could only handle so much. There were worse things than being labeled a teacher’s pet or know-it-all. She didn’t know if she could bear being told she wasn’t a real mage because of her poor spell work abilities. She could get by in most of her classes, but the more complex a spell became, or the more threat against her if she failed…. Cassandra froze up.

“I promise, I won’t say anything to anyone.”

If she really wanted, Cassandra knew that she could just leave. There was absolutely nothing stopping her from walking out the door. However, she was running out of time. Samhain was right around the corner and her fate relied on her ability walk through the damned flames without being burned. There was a legitimate chance that she would be kicked out of P2A4 after just two years, and then what? Would she just pick up at Great Plains? She doubted she could live with the humiliation.

With her mind tentatively made up, Cassandra gave Malcolm a nod, and he returned it with a smile.

“Have you been able to cast it at all? Even if it doesn’t last?” Malcolm asked. He stood a bit taller with his hands clasped behind his back. He was mimicking Stephen’s attempt at an authoritative pose. Neither pulled it off well—though at lease Malcolm had an excuse since he and Cassandra were both the same height.

With a sigh, Cassandra opened her notebook and found a book marked page which had a grid filled with data covering it. “Only on a small scale. If it’s any more than a two foot area, then the spell fails after about three seconds.”

Malcolm’s brows shot upwards. “That’s… really bad. I think only Calvin did that bad on the first day of practice, and he’s terrible at _everything_.

“I know,” she replied and dropped into the desk seat, putting her head in her hands. “I just don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t understand why this is so hard for me. Why couldn’t I have just written a thesis on the Witch Trials? I could do that in day.”

In fact, she had already written a twenty two page paper on the topic that she was prepared to turn over in the event the faculty would accept it in lieu of her trial.

Malcolm scratched his head and then nudged Cassandra with his foot. “Well, don’t just sit there. Come on—stand up and show me what you usually do. Maybe I can figure out what you’re doing wrong.”

With a reluctant groan, she did as she was directed. Cassandra stood and trudged towards the center of the room, where the area was open and she couldn’t catch anything on fire if she failed. Though she had intended to summon up her own small flame, Malcolm beat her to it—creating a fire larger than she had even _tried_ to cast upon in the past.

Cassandra looked up at Malcolm who gave her an encouraging nod. She readied her wand and then followed the motions while speaking the phrase _Friggus Flamma._ Once she had finished, she started to reach down, but immediately felt the heat rising from the flames.

“Okay, so, try again.”

She did try again—and again—and again. Finally, she threw her hands up into the air before dropping them against her sides once more. “I just don’t understand. I’ve… I’ve had trouble before, but this is the worst it’s ever been.”

Malcolm crossed his arms and hummed in thought as he looked around the room. Finally, he turned back to Cassandra and pointed towards one of the empty corners at the front of the room. “Okay, I have an idea. Go stand over there?”

“Now what?” She asked once she had placed herself where she was directed.

“Now _this,_ ” Malcolm replied and swished his wand forward. After some muttering, a wall of flames nearly as tall as either of them blocked Cassandra into the corner.

She immediately pushed herself against the wall, hurrying to hold her hair back from the tall flames dancing only a few inches in front of her. “What are you doing? This isn’t funny!”

Even though it really _wasn’t_ funny, that didn’t stop a grin from spreading over Malcolm’s face. The longer he watched her, his chin held high in satisfaction, the angrier she became. After she finished cursing him out under her breath, Cassandra finally raised her own wand and attempted to cast the Cold Flame spell.

Two failed attempt later, Cassandra stomped her foot and screamed in frustration. Another two, and she felt tears well up in her eyes. She may have wanted to blame it on the smoke, but magic flames had no smoke, so she could only blame the heat.

Malcolm seemed to grow bored of her multiple failures and had taken to leaning against the professor’s desk. “I just don’t get it,” he said finally, “you seem to cast it fine. More than fine— _perfect_. But it just doesn’t work. Maybe you need more incentive.”

“More incentive?” Cassandra snapped, an almost sneer cover her face. “What’s more incentive than being trapped behind a yard of fire?”

Apparently he did have a further incentive in mind as he stared at her belongings sittings out on one of the desks. Malcolm walked over and grabbed Cassandra’s leather bound journal then flipped through it as he headed for her once more. “You’ve really done almost all of the homework for this semester already? That must have taken a lot of time.”

Cassandra’s jar dropped and her eyes went wide in horror. “You can’t be serious. You wouldn’t actually—“

Malcolm shrugged and held the book just inches away from the fire. “You’ve probably memorized most of the material anyhow, right? You could always just redo it and—“

In a mix of panic and anger, Cassandra hurried to cast _Friggus Flamma_ one more time before running through the flames. It wasn’t until she dove at Malcolm to grab her journal that she realized she hadn’t felt the flames. Of course, the smell of burned hair and the painful sensation in her shoulder told Cassandra that she still hadn’t been entirely successful.

But it was progress.

Cassandra held her journal against her chest protectively and stepped away to put at least one more desk between herself and Malcolm. “You—I have so much work—you are such an—“

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?” Malcolm spoke loudly to drown out the start of her ranting, but he wasn’t quite shouting at her. “You should probably get to the healers so they can look at your shoulder. It looks pretty nasty.” He grimaced to reaffirm his disgust.

Cassandra twisted her head to try to look at the wound that had started to appear. It wasn’t _that_ bad. She could probably handle it herself with some of the salves she had bottled herself. Going to the healer would mean someone else knew of her failures.

When she looked up again, Malcolm was already grabbing his own bag and making his way towards the exit.

“Wait,” Cassandra called out before Malcolm could get to the door. She opened her notebook and flipped through to somewhere near the back and tore out a few pages. “Here.”

Malcolm walked back over and took the papers from her, looking them curiously. “What’re these?”

“It’s a draft I wrote for the paper that’s due tomorrow. I rewrote it entirely—the draft isn’t great. If you copy it down and turn it in, you’ll at least pass. Unless you have something against cheating?” Cassandra asked.

“Nope,” he replied with a laugh. “Nothing at all. I will take it. I’m sure Orwell will be absolutely shocked and appalled if I manage to turn something in. So… Same time tomorrow?”

Cassandra opened her mouth to object but then snapped it closed again. She reluctantly nodded. As long as he didn’t bring a parade of people with him to show off her poor casting ability, then she would accept Malcolm’s help.

She desperately needed it, after all.

 


	2. Age: 18

Cassandra used the back of her leather glove to wipe away a few beads of sweat that had started to form along her brow. The greenhouse was always incredibly hot and stuffy, but it was, of course, needed to ensure the plants thrived. She had grown used to it after spending most of her spare time working in the long room.

She had nearly completed carving the last rune into her terracotta pot when the door leading to the academy hallway burst open. It slammed into a large, potted shrubbery and the sudden crash caused her to jump and her hand to slip. She scowled as she unwillingly put an extra line through the rune, destroying her work completely.

Cassandra scowled and turned to the door, staring down whoever had dared interrupt her peaceful silence. She found herself staring at another student who was certainly a few years younger than her. The girl had tussled, dark brown hair and she was slightly hunched over, catching her breath. Cassandra couldn’t tell if the girl looked at all guilty, but she certainly appeared to be a bit panicked.

“Uhm…” The girl started and glanced around, ignoring Cassandra completely. “Yup. Yeah, that’ll work.”

She hurried to move around the long table that Cassandra was standing at and squeezed between two stacks of bagged peat.

Cassandra was about to ask the girl what she was doing when she heard hurried footsteps approaching from the hallway. Another student barged into the room—this one was a male who Cassandra knew was only a year below her. He was covered in green goo.

“ _Taggart,_ ” the student bellowed and looked around before facing Cassandra. “Where is she?!” He was a well-known to be a Loup Garou with a terrible temper. He practically snarled at Cassandra as he puffed himself up to fill the doorway. She raised a brow and stared at him—was he trying to intimidate her?

With a deep frown, Cassandra set her ruined pot down on the table and let out an annoyed groan. She turned and looked down the length of the greenhouse, towards the door that was propped open. The angry young man growled at her for a brief moment, perhaps trying to gauge whether or not Cassandra indicating something. Ultimately, he ran off, knocking down two smaller potted plants as he went.

After the young man did not reappear, the girl climbed out from her hiding spot. Cassandra watched as she dusted off her torn up jeans—which were hardly uniform but no one was going to complain on a weekend—and placed her hands on her hips. A grin stretched across her face.

“What an idiot,” the girl, Taggart apparently, said with a laugh.

Cassandra’s frown didn’t disappear as she hummed in response. “I assume you’re responsible for…” She waved her hand at her face, “for that?”

Taggart gave an over emphasized shrug.  “I won’t admit to anything. Though even if I did, I don’t think anyone would say he didn’t deserve it. He’s an ass.”

“Well, that ass might be coming back in here, so you should probably keep going,” Cassandra said and nodded towards the hallway door. “I’d really prefer it if some sort of fight _didn’t_ break out in my greenhouse.”

“ _Your_ greenhouse?” Taggart replied with almost a sneer. “Don’t see your name anywhere on it.”

Cassandra shrugged and rolled her eyes. “I obviously don’t mean it literally. It’s the school’s greenhouse. But seventy-five percent of the projects in here are mine. I don’t want to fail my final project because some second year caused some trouble.”

“Psht, I’m a _third_ year,” Taggart said proudly, standing up a bit straighter and pushing her chin out.

“What- _ever_ ,” Cassandra groaned. “Just please… keep going.”

It looked, for a moment, like the younger girl was going to argue. However, as a shadow passed by the green house quickly, Taggart snapped her mouth shut and nodded. “Alright fine, I’ll go, but it isn’t because you told me to leave! Now I have dirt all over me and I can’t go to dinner like this.” She hooked her thumbs through her belt loops and sauntered on out of the greenhouse.

Cassandra sighed and grabbed a new pot from one of the shelves below her table. She was about to set her carving tool to the surface of the terracotta pot them Taggart’s head popped back into the doorway.

“So, uh, yeah, don’t tell him I came this way if he comes back. Kay?”

Cassandra nodded and waved the girl away. “I won’t say a word. I really don’t want involved.”

Taggart returned the nod and disappeared from the doorway once more. This time, she did not return.

Once she was confident that there would be no further interruptions, Cassandra again set to carving her runes into the pots. She still had four more to go before she could call it quits for the day, and she was running out of time to get them done. After all, it was set to be a full moon that night, and if she wanted to start testing the Helichrysum she had been growing. She knew she was pushing the limits attempting a new project so close to finals, but it had simply taken too long to get the appropriate permissions to grow the valuable plant. Regardless, Cassandra knew that the extra work would be worth it if she could take it on to Imperial with her in the fall.

Of course, it would all be useless if she couldn’t get the damned plants repotted before nightfall. As the angry, goo covered young man came running back into the green house, cursing at her as he did so, she could only shake her head and wonder why she insisted on taking on so many projects.


	3. Age: 18 (Graduation)

“Where’s Pliny Junior?”

Cassandra sighed but didn’t look over at the figure approaching her. “With his brother and the others, probably. I think they went to a classroom to drink,” she replied with a shrug.

This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted to go to the graduation formal in the first place. Even though she had a date, he was quick to ditch her. Really, she should have known better. Her friend David had begged her to ask his sibling, William, to the formal. David had said that it would be fun—that they would all stick together and enjoy their last night at P2A4. It had lasted for all of twenty minutes before the brothers had disappeared with the rest of her friends.

And so there she was, hanging about the corner of the hall, where the music was enchanted to be quiet enough to talk, but loud enough to enjoy. Cassandra wasn’t entirely sure why she was still waiting around. She was perfectly content going back to her room and going to sleep after a mentally taxing day, but there she was.

Malcolm snorted and leaned against the stone wall next to her, crossing his arms. “And they didn’t invite you?”

Again, Cassandra shrugged. “You know me. I don’t break the rules. I—“

“—don’t like to get in trouble,” Malcolm finished. She didn’t need to see him to know that he was probably rolling his eyes at her.

There were always parties on graduation night, and very rarely did anyone get so much as scolded. It didn’t matter to her. She had gone through all of school without doing much more than lending other students her homework, and she had no intention on ruining her perfect record by drinking cheap liquor in a dark classroom with the school’s elite.

And no, she hadn’t even been invited.

The duo stood by silently for a few moments before Malcolm pushed himself from the all and turned to her, extending his hand. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come on, come dance.”

Cassandra’s eyes flickered from his hand to his face, noting as she did that he had chosen to wear a rather subdued, mundane suit. She wasn’t at all surprised. Many of the proud, mixed heritage students made it a point to stand out from the overtop Unsoiled. After a few seconds of intent staring, she shook her head and hummed. “No, thank you. I’m a terrible dancer—very poor coordination and all.”

Malcolm shrugged and dropped his hand, sliding it into his pocket. “Fine, suit yourself. But, you know, you do look pretty pitiful in the corner.”

“I think ‘pitiful in the corner’ has pretty much described my school years,” she said with a small grin and a laugh. She knew he didn’t mean it in a negative way. He was just being honest, which was just how she preferred things. “But I am completely okay with that. I’ve made it this far and avoided most social situations.”

For a moment, it looked as though he was going to say something, based on the way he opened and closed his mouth. However, instead, Malcolm nodded and looked over his shoulder at the dance floor. The song had just changed to one of the band’s hits. Cassandra was sure she recognized it, but she admittedly hadn’t bothered listening to many of the Magimundi pop stars.

“So you’re still headed to Imperial with the rest of them?”

Cassandra nodded. “Yeah. I’m starting there on August 18th. You’re going to New World?”

He returned her nod, but it was slow, and he was looking past her at nothing in particular. “You could probably still apply and get in, you know. You don’t have to go Imperial with all of those—“

“I got in,” she said before his finished. He looked at her with some surprise and she shrugged. “I applied there too. I did get in. I just… Some of their parents already told me that I’ll have a job when I finish. I know you have big dreams of becoming a marshal, but I would be happier in a research lab with a lot of funding to back me up.”

“And you really think that they’ll just give you that without wanting something in return? Come on. You can’t be that naïve.”

Cassandra clenched her jaw and fought the urge to groan loudly. His words were almost identical to her mother’s. “You’re probably right. But… at least it will give me somewhere to start, right? I can save the world, one plant at a time.”

“In that case, yeah, I guess you need to start sooner rather than later,” Malcolm said, giving her a slight smile. He then jabbed his thumb towards the dance floor one more time. “Are you sure…?”

“I’m sure.” Cassandra smiled sheepishly and shrugged, “besides, I’m still not packed. I have a ton to do before I can go to bed. I’ll probably leave soon. Anyhow, good luck at New World—you should probably make an effort to pick up a book every once and a while. Also, thanks. For the help I mean. I don’t know if I would have even made it past the second trial without your extra tutoring. I do appreciate you taking time out to help me over these last years, even if I may have seemed…. Less than grateful.”

Malcolm reached out and clapped her on the shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze. “No problem. It was a fair trade anyhow. I mean, who knows how many assignments you let me copy—“

“Eighty seven.”

“What?”

“Eighty seven,” Cassandra repeated. “That’s how many assignments I gave you since we came up with our arrangement.”

Malcolm stared at her for a moment, a brow raised. “I feel like I should be surprised that you counted, but I’m really not.” He let go of her shoulder and stepped back. “If you’re positive you don’t want to come join us, I’m going to go find my date. Who knows where she ran off to.”

Cassandra nodded and raised her hand, giving him a bit of a wave. He returned it and then turned on his heel to rejoin the crowd moving as a swarm around the stage. She waited for one more song before she retreated from the Hall to her dorm—where all of her things had been neatly packed for hours.

 


	4. Age: 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A large time jump here. I may go back and fill in some other snippets.

With each tick of the clock, Cassandra’s calm resolve started to dissipate. The Arch Justice still had not called her into the office, and she had been patiently waiting for over an hour.

She hated this—hated every bit of it. She hated her freshly pressed, expensive navy suit her employer forced her to buy to stay on their payroll. She hated the fact that her days were littered with meetings and lunch appointments. Mostly though, she hated having to plaster a false smile to her fact and talk with _people_.

With a loud sigh, Cassandra let her head drop back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. She longed for the days when she could hole up in her research lab for three days and no one would have noticed. She missed having her own greenhouse, her own private sanctuary away from prying eyes and inquisitive words.

She should never have opened her stupid mouth. She should have done what she had always done—kept her head down and hoped that most people ignored her until they needed something.

“Ms. Schaefer?”

Cassandra looked over at the secretary in annoyance, though the other woman hardly seemed phased by it.

“The Arch Justice with see you now.”

She wasted no time jumping up and gathering her briefcase. Cassandra didn’t want to give the secretary a chance to change her mind, just in case. The secretary opened the door, let Cassandra inside, and then shut the door once more.

Whereas the hallway had been loud and chaotic, with people shuffling about nonstop since Cassandra had arrived, the Arch Justice’s office was nearly silent. Still, Cassandra’s eyes were drawn immediately to the woman who sat behind the large, carved wooden desk bearing the Baja Province seal.

Luna Chavez was an impressive woman, though Cassandra couldn’t quite say _why_. She was a beautiful, middle aged woman with warm, brown skin and silky, darker brown hair. Her suit was expensive and well-tailored, and her hands here finely manicured. Yes, Arch Justice Luna Chavez was extremely alluring.

And her ferocity was known to _everyone_.

Her eyes flicked up at Cassandra for all of two seconds before she returned her attention to whatever she was writing. “Well?”

Cassandra felt her mouth run dry. She was usually known for her unflappable nature, but in this moment, it was failing her. Any sense of confidence she had when she walked into the room was already gone. “Um…”

The Arch Justice exhaled loudly and dropped her quill. She crossed her arms and looked up at Cassandra fully. “ _Well._ Tell me why I should deregulate the growing of the Abrus Precatorius plant. That’s what you were sent here to do, wasn’t it? At least, that’s what your employer told me when he sent me two tickets to the opera. You have five minutes before my secretary comes and escorts you from my office. I would make those count.”

“Right, of course,” Cassandra said and stepped to the side. She set her briefcase down on a small table and opened it to withdraw a leather bound folder. It had a locked clasp, but it popped open at her touch. “Right now, there is only one research group permitted to grow and harvest the Abrus Precatorius plant, and that group works in conjuction with Swindlehurst. While that is of course out of necessity to aid patients affected by the Evil Eye, would it not be better to stop the Evil Eye before it even happened?”

Cassandra could see it in the woman’s eyes—she was not buying it. Of course, everyone knew about the benefits of the Abrus Precatorius and the Jumbie Beads. Theoretically, everyone would want to be able to legally acquire Jumbie Beads just as a precaution, which was exactly why Cassandra’s employer wanted them deregulated. They wanted to snatch up the market before another company had the chance.

“Ms. Schaefer,” the Arch Justice said in a drawn, condescending tone, “stopping the Evil Eye comes down to our Marshalls catching dark wizards. Not a corporation profiting off of fear mongering. Do you know how many people are affected each year by the Evil Eye?”

 “Yes,” Cassandra replied. Since the fall of Jack Slager, the number had significantly dropped. There was now less than one hundred cases reported a year, and almost half of those cases turned out to be false claims by individuals who had undiagnosed mental disorders.

“Then you know that there isn’t a pressing need to distribute Jumbie Beads to the public. All it would do is drive up the price of the resources needed to successfully grow the Abrus Precatorius and make it more difficult for those who needed it.”

Cassandra clenched her jaw tightly and stared at the Arch Justice. The woman was right—absolutely right. Cassandra didn’t disagree with her one bit. In fact, Cassandra would go one step further and say that it was _dangerous_ to regulate the plant because in her experience, with enough effort, magical properties could be reversed. She wouldn’t put it past her employer to try and find a way to weaponize the poor plant.

“You can either stand here and stare at me for the next three and a half minutes, or you can just do us both a favor and leave,” Arch Justice Chavez said, and eyebrow raised. “Kroner Industries is going to have to do a lot more than send me opera tickets to get me to change a long standing regulation. They aren’t doing themselves any favors sending _you_.”

It was true that Korner was really shooting themselves in the foot by sending Cassandra. She may have had the knowledge and the research to back up their claims, but she was far from personable. She was not the salesman they needed, which made her wonder—and not for the first time—why she had been transferred to Baja.

Without another word, Cassandra gave the Arch Justice a nod and returned to her briefcase. She stowed her research away once more and made for the door. Before she could leave, however, the woman behind her spoke.

“You must have really gotten under their skin to have been moved here.” Chavez’s voice was low and perhaps even a bit sympathetic, as if he found Cassandra to be pitiable. “You had better watch yourself.”

Cassandra felt her shoulders tense a bit as she reached for the door handle and exited. She ignored the woman’s words and kept moving, disregarding the fact that she probably came off as extremely rude. What did she care if the Arch Justice was offended by her brisk exit? She wasn’t likely to see the woman again since she wasn’t likely to have a _job_ soon.

000

By the time that Cassandra made it back to her office, the halls were clearing out. It was Friday afternoon and a holiday weekend so most employees had opted to take a half day. Not Cassandra, however. Each year she ended up with a week or two of vacation time which she sold back to the company for a bigger bonus. She didn’t need vacation time—besides her mother, she had no one to visit anyhow.

Sighing loudly, Cassandra raised her hand and gave the wards a brief moment to recognize the invisible rune stamped on her palm. It had burned the day she received it and still tingled each time it flared to life to grant her access to the secured part of the Korner building. The security rune was an annoying but necessary precaution taken to keep those with lower clearance from accessing restricted areas.

She used to have top level clearance as a key member of the main research team, but it had been revoked when she was moved to Baja. Her superiors assured her that it was simply because she was going to a new HQ and that she would get it back after a year with her new team. Somehow, Cassandra doubted that.

The motion activated hallway lights kicked on as she turned into her wing, telling her that all of her coworkers were gone. She couldn’t say that she was surprised—most of the offices were filled with company bigwigs, who were often out playing golf with their mundane contacts or spending days at fire-whiskey tastings. And once hunting season rolled around… Well, Cassandra hadn’t yet been around for one yet, but she had been told that most of the employees took a retreat in the winter to go Wendigo hunting.

In the end, she often found herself to be one of the only people in the office. Baja operated very differently than Mishupishu, that was for damned sure.

Cassandra dropped into her chair, tapping her wand against the lamp on her desk. To her surprise, there was a new stack of research findings on her desk, which meant at least one other person had been in that day to do actual work. She wasted no time kicking off her uncomfortable heels and switching into a pair of slippers she had hidden beneath her desk before diving into the paperwork in front of her.

She hadn’t really noticed that it had started to grow dark until she saw the hallway light flicker on from the corner of her eye. Cassandra glanced down at her watch to see that it was only a bit after seven, which was earlier than the janitor usually came through—he routinely cleaned the hallways and vanished the trash at ten o’clock.

_Someone probably left something_ , she thought to herself as she set her reading down and stood to stretch. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she had yet again skipped dinner. Cassandra stood with a groan and shuffled over to a cabinet in the back of her office to retrieve a box of pretzels and a tea bag.

It wasn’t until she was hunched over and rummaging through her miscellaneous items that she realized that there was a large shadow cast upon her wall. Cassandra quickly stood and whirled around, but by the time that she did, whoever had been standing in her doorway was gone.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and her skin felt like it was crawling. She had to catch herself on the edge of her desk as her muscles tightened and her heart started to race. Soon, she was shaking so violently that the vibrations from her body carried over to the heavy wooden desk and the folders stacked on it started to slide off, hitting the ground and scattering papers everywhere.

She barely felt herself crash to the red carpeted floor. She was too busy trying to steady her breathing, which was difficult to do when she felt her chest and lungs tighten so much that she could not take more than a few shallow breaths.

If she had been in the right state of mind, Cassandra would have briefly wondered if she was suffering from some sort of panic attack—something she had never in her life gone through. But she was far from coherent. Her vision blurred and dotted, and she couldn’t blink back the tears that started to well up in her eyes. The room was closing in on her and she swore she saw movement in the shadows.

There was no way to tell how long she had laid on the floor of her office, half sobbing and half choking, with pain and discomfort shooting through her shaking body. She was convinced that no one would find her—that she would stop breathing and no one would even notice until Tuesday morning when someone finally walked through the hallways again. Of course, her logical mind dictated that the janitor would appear and hopefully help her, but that thought was secondary to the panic and anxiety she felt.

As Cassandra lay, shaking so violently that her arm and knee were quickly bruised from repeatedly hitting against the wooden desk, her subconscious told her only one thing.

She should’ve been wearing Jumbie Beads.

 


	5. Age:34

The lightning was always the worst.

After spending nearly two years in Swindlehurst, Cassandra had started to learn when to anticipate one of her attacks.

She didn’t like it when people invaded her personal space. It made her skin crawl. Though she had never been a particular touchy-feely person to begin with, she now hated when people so much as shook her hand. It bothered her when someone stood too close to her. She would feel herself becoming twitchy and angry when someone lingered too long.

She didn’t like when things ran at her. At first, the healers had thought that it was only people that would set her off. However after they brought in a therapy dog, they found that Cassandra’s anxiety spiked when anything large enough to hurt her came at her too quickly. It had been a pathetic sight when she froze up and started to shake and cry while a golden retriever whined at her.

Most of all, however, she didn’t like when it stormed.

The thunder was something she could deal with, though it certainly caused her body to tense until her chronic pain returned and she was forced to lie in a fetal position with silent tears until it passed. It was the lightning that caused her irrational paranoia to spike. With each flash, Cassandra could see the shadows morph on her wall until she was convinced that there was someone in her small room with her. Of course she was always alone, but her mind couldn’t recognize that fact. Instead, she came to believe that someone was hurting her—that someone was standing behind her and deliberately causing the sharp pain that coursed through her body. Though, due to her repeat delusion, no one believed her when someone _was_ intentionally causing her pain.

Such was Cassandra Schaefer’s life after being hit with the Evil Eye curse.

She was far from alone in her suffering. Swindlehurst housed a dozen other patients who had not yet recovered enough to be released back into the world. Because of the nature of their somewhat-psychosis, they were housed in a wing of the hospital rather than being placed into asylums. Many people could recover from the Evil Eye if they had the proper care, after all.

Still, many of the orderlies were not well equipped to deal with patients who screamed at all hours—who fought with them when it was time to take their tinctures made up of Abrus Precatorius root, Lavender, and Sage. It didn’t matter how many times the orderlies told Cassandra and her partners-in-suffering that they were trying to help. All Cassandra saw was a large man and a scowling woman trying to force her to drink a bitter serum that did nothing to sooth her discomfort.

So she kicked and screamed until she was held down and forced to swallow. Bruises formed on her wrists, ankles, and collar bone. They were ignored, however, since they were _necessary_ for her recovery.

When Cassandra had good days, she couldn’t blame the orderlies for their forceful nature. They could only handle so much crazy before they became desensitized and did what was needed to fulfill their duties. She herself preferred to stay away from the other patients whenever she could, simply because they ended up facilitating an endless cycle of paranoia and conspiracies when they had time together.

The patients undergoing treatment for the Evil Eye all had varying levels of side effects. Cassandra felt that she was one of the lucky ones, but perhaps that was because of where her priorities in life had always fallen.

She suffered from the chronic pain the most out of all of them. Rarely did a day go by that she didn’t have an episode that left her immobile for at least an hour. Some of the others only dealt with aches and pains, and general discomfort. However those that didn’t suffer physically, suffered mentally. Cassandra heard the healers whisper amongst themselves, and she knew that those patients would only be given another year of treatment before being transferred to a more permanent psychiatric facility.

Though Cassandra had a few severe triggers, she managed to go through most of her days with only minor anxiety. Her primary healer theorized that it was because Cassandra had always had such a strong mind that she was able to fight off the effects of the curse better than some of the others, which then caused the effects to manifest in other ways.

It was reassuring to know that she was likely going to be able to leave and possibly resume a normal life.

000

Since Cassandra graduated P2A4, she had rarely seen her mother. Once she had moved to Imperial, Cassandra returned home during Christmas only. She used the other breaks as an opportunity to utilize the campus’s facilities uninterrupted and completed many of her best projects during those times. Once the summer rolled around, she was working internships for her Unsoiled friends’ families.

The trend continued after Cassandra had accepted her job with Kroner Industries. Her father died from heart complications when she was thirty. She hadn’t returned home since his funeral. Though she loved her mother dearly, Cassandra simply didn’t know what to say to the woman. It wasn’t until Cassandra was confined to Swindlehurst with nothing but empty time on her hands that she realized that her detached relationship with her mother perfectly exemplified the rest of her life.

Empty.

But she wanted things to change. She was thirty four and there was still time—she was still considered rather young for a Wizard.

So Cassandra sat in the visitors lounge and waited. And waited.

She waited for almost an hour and a half, her heart slowly tightening as she started to think that her mother wouldn’t show up for their first visit in almost five years. She had just started to think about actually listening to the orderlies and returning to her room when the doors to the large, bright room opened.

Heloise Schaefer had always been a strong, independent woman. Cassandra knew that her mother had gone against the rest of the Schaefer clan wishes when she left their Unsoiled traditions and went off to marry a mundane farmer. Together, the two built Cassandra a loving home which praised her love for herbology and ever growing mind. They instilled good values within her, and Cassandra had often felt that she was luckier than her Unsoiled friends because of the family she came from. However, she had never grasped just how lucky she was until that family had pulled apart.

Her mother looked much older now, with permanent lines and wrinkles embedded into her face—around her eyes and brows in particular. She looked tired. But that didn’t stop Heloise Schaefer from giving Cassandra a genuine smile.

Before Cassandra could warn her mother to stay at least a step away, the older woman hurried over to her and gave her a tight embrace. Cassandra stiffened and her breath caught in her throat. It took every ounce of her control to force herself to breathe again, though it was staggered and raspy. An orderly hurried over and grabbed Heloise’s shoulders, urging her to step away from Cassandra.

“Ma’am, ma’am I’m sorry, someone should have told you. You can’t touch her, she—“

“What do you mean I can’t touch her? She’s my—“

“—I’m fine,” Cassandra choked out as her mother was pulled from her. She awkwardly stumbled backwards until she felt the back of her knees hit one of the cushioned chairs. “Just… Just give me a minute.”

As the orderly pulled Heloise to the side to explain the conditions, Cassanda squeezed her eyes shut and focused on suppressing the spiking anxiety within her. She knew she could do it—she had to if she ever wanted to be able to go back out into the world again. After a few minutes, she was able to calm down enough to be allowed to remain in the visitor’s room. Still, she kept her hands on the arms of her chair, grasping the wood so tightly she thought it might break beneath her fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” Heloise said, her voice low and calm as she sat down across the table from Cassandra. “I should have known better. It just came over me and…”

Cassandra gave her a poor attempt at a smile. “It’s fine. I’m okay. Better than most.”

Heloise nodded and then stared at Cassandra. Cassandra stared back. For a few moments, there was only silence. What was there to even say between them? Cassandra knew that she had a lot to apologize for but she didn’t feel like it would sound genuine—not while she was sitting in poor quality, hospital provided clothes, surrounded by orderlies that were listening to her conversation. No, it would be better to do when she was out and able to freely say what was on her mind without it being reported to her therapist.

“I brought you some things I thought you might like,” Heloise said finally. She pulled her purse onto her lap and tapped it with her wand. She opened it and reached inside, her arm disappearing completely into the very small bag. Once by one, she started pulling out miscellaneous items.

She had some of Cassandra’s old clothes: school tee shirts and sweatshirts, well-worn and soft flannels and tank tops. Cassandra hadn’t really grown since she was sixteen, and any weight she had put on, she had lost again once she placed in Swindlehurst. As she held up one of the shirts that had once been her favorite, Cassandra’s mother started to pull out a few books. After that—a potted plant.

Cassandra smiled as she looked over the items. She couldn’t believe that her mother had held onto them for so many years. It made her heart hurt as she was hit with a wave of nostalgia. With a sigh, Cassandra shook her head.

“I’ll keep the clothes but I can’t keep the books. Our rooms are open for most of the day. Anyone can walk in and take our things,” she said and frowned.

“Do you really think that would happen? They’re just books…”

“Yes. I’ve seen it happen to others. Some of the people here… they’re really not right in the mind. I’m… I’m mostly fine, mentally. It’s the physical ailments I suffer from. But there are others here that are worse. A lot worse.”

Heloise gave her a smile and nodded, but Cassandra could see the pity in the woman’s eyes. Perhaps some people would have felt ashamed to have some pity them so, but in this case, she did not. She was sure that her mother understood just how frustrating it was for Cassandra to have to stay in the confines of the hospital wing with nothing to engage her still in-tact mind. The healers certainly didn’t. They treated Cassandra like a child rather than an educated, published researcher.

“What if put a few charms on them? The orderlies would be able to see them, but if the patients here suffer as you say they do, they probably wouldn’t have the capacity without a wand to notice the books. Maybe the plant as well… I did ask, you’re allowed to have it,” Heloise offered.

Cassandra sighed and shrugged. “That may work. If I have to explain their enchantment, I will. I don’t see why it would be a problem.”

Without waiting even a moment, Heloise waved her wand over the stack of books and muttered a quick incantation before moving onto the potted plant—a small rose bush. Cassandra could only hope that she was out of the hospital by the time she needed to repot the plant. Once Heloise was done, Cassandra picked up the pot and inspected it.

There were runes etched into the pot but had been painted over and then glazed. Cassandra raised a brow at her mother who shrugged and fluffed her hair a bit while looking away. “Obviously I trust the healers here to do their job, but you can’t blame me for doing my part too.”

Of course, Cassandra indeed did not blame her mother. Healing by Heloise was very well known, after all, even if those remedies had less to do with spell work and more to do with herbalism.

Even though the Runes were difficult to see under the glaze, Cassandra recognized them based on touch alone, even if the indents were slight—she had spent years memorizing them and creating a few of her own. Runes were incredibly useful when it came to the modification of magical properties in plants, which had been the basis of nearly all of her research.

Not that it ended well.

The feeling of the runes beneath her fingertips, runes meant to promote growth, healing, and relaxation, were a comfort to Cassandra. Whether they would help in such a small quantity or not, their familiarity was comforting.

She smiled at her mother. “Thank you.”

 

Not three days later, Cassandra’s books were missing.

She had just been returning from the common room when she caught one of the orderlies—one of the women who forced Cassandra to swallow down the tinctures—quickly stepping out of Cassandra’s room. At first, Cassandra disregarded the tingle at the base of her spine as part of her usual paranoia. When she stepped into her room, however, she saw that her bed was unmade and that her mattress was askew. The books she had hidden beneath the foot of her uncomfortable, lumpy mattress were gone.

Cassandra wasted no time running to the orderly station to report her missing books. That, it seemed, was the moment things started to go downhill for her.

 

 

“I’m not… I’m not reverting!” Cassandra snapped in frustration. She pushed her hands into her hair and pulled slightly. “There’s got to be security footage or something—you’ll see her come into my room! She took my books! Why would I make this up?”

“It’s not that you make it up,” sighed the healer, shaking his head. It looked like he was getting ready to speak to a child, which only made Cassandra angrier. “I’m sure you believe it’s true. It’s just part of the paranoia. No one remembers seeing you carrying any books, Cassandra. You never had any. Don’t worry, this is just a minor setback. I’m sure you’ll be able to—“

Cassandra jumped up and started pacing about. Her muscles started to tense, but they didn’t lock up. She could feel it—it wasn’t an episode. She was just _angry_.

Maybe the healer could see it too. Instead of trying to calm Cassandra down and work with her as usual, the healer nodded to an orderly on the other side of the door. It opened and the man entered, grabbing Cassandra’s wrists before she could even think about lashing out at him. At his touch, Cassandra immediately started flailing about, trying to pull away from him—something she wouldn’t have even thought to do if he hadn’t grabbed her in the first place.

With the help of another male orderly, Cassandra was dragged into her room. She was thrown to her mattress roughly. Together, the orderlies held her down long enough to conjure up restraints. When she felt one clasp on her wrist, Cassandra started to scream at them in rage.

It wasn’t common for her to be restrained—she could only recall a handful of times that her episodes had escalated enough to require restraint. It was positively barbaric since she was wandless and could do little to hurt them, even if she could properly cast some sort of spell. Sometimes they would go so far as to cast an immobilization spell on her, swearing up and down that it was for her own safety. They tried not to make a habit of that since there had been several incidents where orderlies _forgot_ to end the spell which had resulted in discipline.

After securing her ankles, the orderlies were quick the flee the room and leave her to her swearing. She continued with her screaming, mostly about her books, until her throat was raw. Finally, she settled down and stared at her potted plant on her window sill.

_I sound like I’m crazy_ , she thought to herself as she squeezed her eyes shut. _I sound just like they expect me to sound. This was on purpose. I was doing so well. They’re going to extend my review._

Cassandra tried her best to rationalize the situation and ignore the shadows she saw growing on her wall. She hated Swindlehurst. She hated suffering as she did. The worst part of it all was that sometimes she couldn’t help but believe that maybe she was crazy. Being surrounded by people who weren’t all right in the head day in and day out could make anyone feel that way, especially someone who had been cursed to forever feel a sense of paranoia and anxiety.

 

That night was the first of many that Cassandra would spend restrained for the duration of lights out. She had thought about simply agreeing with her head Healer that there had never been any books, but she was sure that the moment she did, the books would resurface to prove her wrong. The Healer asked her repeatedly why she believed that someone was intentionally trying to make her appear to have slipped backwards with her progress. He stared at her, trying to read her thoughts.

It was as if he wanted her to desperately make an outlandish claim.

Of course, it could have been her paranoia. After all, she was truly convinced that it had been her employer and their partners, Korner, Blackwell, and Oehler who had decided to curse her. She had simply known too much about their illegal testing and their premature production. When she had brought it up to her compliance department, she was quickly silenced with a move to Baja—Baja, where it was somewhat _easier_ to get away with things such as cursing a disruptive employee with one of the darkest known curses.

If Cassandra ever repeated her thoughts, she would likely be declared delusional. Those companies ran almost _everything_ —everything that Foresight didn’t touch, at least. They weren’t going to let a wayward researcher back out into the world, spouting irrational claims or revealing their secrets.

It was with that thought that she realized just why the Healer was making such an effort to get her to say something ridiculous. He would wipe away her progress and she would be stuck in Swindlehurst for another year—maybe transferred to one of the asylums like some of the mentally inept patients. She would be forever locked away from the world.

Cassandra resolved to keep her mouth shut—to only say the things she believed were ‘safe.’ She would hold her tongue and do whatever it took to get out of the damned hospital.

She had been doing very well for almost two weeks and had even been freed from her nightly restraints. However, she was once again thrown into a fit of rage when she discovered that her mother’s plant had been removed from her room.

Cassandra marched down the hallway to the nurses station and slammed her hands on the desk, startling the orderly sitting below the raised counter. The woman, the one whom Cassandra had seen taking her books from her room, looked up at her. She opened her mouth to speak, but Cassandra held up a hand.

“My plant is missing. And don’t even try saying that I _never had a plant._  My mother received permission to give it to me, so there’s a record of her inquiry. Additionally, numerous people have seen, and questioned, the fact that I’ve started drying the rose petals for tea. _Where is my plant?_ ”

The orderly looked up at Cassandra with almost a sickly sweet smile. “Oh no, of course we all know you had a plant! Unfortunately, while I was in there dusting today, I noticed that there may have been some runes inscribed on the pot—which is obviously not allowed since it can interfere with our diagnosis and healing process. When I took it to the Head Healer, he agreed that there were numerous runes that have likely been interfering with your regimen, which may explain why you’ve relapsed—“

“—I have _not_ relapsed—“

“— _and so_ ,” the woman said, louder over Cassandra’s voice, “the Head Healer has confiscated the plant. We’re sure you didn’t know about them since they were so hard to see, but this will be a strike against your mother—“

Cassandra threw her hands up in the air and let them his her sides in frustration. “My mother is Heloise Schaefer! You people use some of her salves and tinctures here! She’s one of _the_ Schaefers! They’re famous for their background in Herbology and Healing! If you think that she would do something other than benefit me, you’re sorely mistaken—“

“—and, because we don’t know what other sort of side effects the runes may have had, it looks like we will have to do more testing. We’ll be taking blood just before dinner and—“

Cassandra was ready to start throwing things. It took every ounce of her restrain to keep from grabbing the stack of papers sitting on the edge of the countertop and throwing them around the hallway. As her conviction started to waiver, however, she smelled smoke, which was enough to distract her.

In just moments, there was sudden chaos in Cassandra’s wing. Orderlies went running about to go and track down another patient—a disturbed man named Antoni—who had a tendency to light things on fire when he went into particularly bad fits. He was one of the patients who had been in Swindlehurst the longest, and it seemed that his magic was simply starting to go out of control. Cassandra wondered how long it would be until he was transferred out or even stripped of his magic.

That was one of the few things that had thus far saved her, Cassandra thought as she watched the orderlies run down the hallway with a deep frown planted in place. Her poor casting ability had certainly deemed her to be a non-threat. If she had ever shown signs of wandless magic, she was sure that the hospital would have done something suitably terrible to her. After all, it had been proven that some victims could wield the Evil Eye after being cursed with it. It seemed that the Healers didn’t believe her to be one of them, thankfully.

Cassandra watched for a moment longer than then turned to the nurse’s station once more, looking around for any signs of her plant. It was no where to be found and had likely been taken from the wing all together. With a stomp of her foot, Cassandra stormed back to her room.

 

Just as the orderly had said, Cassandra was retrieved from her room to have blood taken. She kicked and screamed, not just because it was unnecessary, but because of the serum they tried to give her. Though they swore it was her normal medication, she knew it was not. The coloring was slightly different and she could see flecks swirling around in the golden coloring. It only took her a quick wiff to know that a bit of Eris Umber had been added to the mixture.

Someone who was not well versed in magical plant properties may not have been able to tell, but if they thought they could slip it in without her noticing, then they were fools.

She managed to kick it out of the orderly’s hands, which ultimately only made him angry. The glass shattered on the floor and he roughly grabbed Cassandra. It didn’t take much to hoist her up at that point, having spent months unhealthy. He easily forced her to stand and marched her out of the room, dragging her most of the way down the hallway to the examination rooms.

The head Healer was very displeased to see her resisting the orderlies when he stepped into the room. After receiving his nod, the two orderlies jabbed her arms and ankles with their wands, freezing her limbs in place on the examination chair.

“Now, now, Cassandra, how many times have we been over this? You need to take your medicine if you ever hope to get better,” the head healer said and sat down in the chair across from her.

Cassandra pulled against her invisible bonds before deflating and frowning at the man. “I have two degrees in Herbology and have spent a decade researching magical plant properties. My mother is Heloise Schaefer of the Schaefer clan and owner of Healing by Heloise. I can spot Eris Umber from a mile away.”

For a moment, Cassandra could have _sworn_ she saw a flicker of recognition in the head healer’s eyes. Perhaps even a brief moment of surprise. She may have been suffering from the Evil Eye, but it didn’t mean that she was suddenly _stupid._ He gave her a forced smile.

“That’s ridiculous. Don’t worry though; it’s just your usual anxiety. Now, we’ll give you your medicine and then take some blood to see if there has been any ill effects from the runes on your mother’s pot.”

It didn’t matter how much Cassandra struggled, the three Swindlehurst employees were able to force her mouth open and get the tincture down her throat. They even cast a relaxation spell on her to make sure that she couldn’t try to force it back up again.

In only moments, Cassandra could feel the ‘medicine’ kick in. The added bits of Eris Umber reversed the mixture’s healing properties and soon she felt deeply ill. Her head felt heavy, there was a ringing in her ears, and she felt a deep sense of dread. When the needle pricked her skin, it caused a dull ache which remained long after they had finished with her.

“See? Not so bad,” the healer said, though Cassandra didn’t reply. “Go ahead, take her back. I think we have what we need here.”

Even once the binding spell was released, Cassandra felt like her arms and legs were glued into place. The orderlies had just as difficult of a time dragging her out of the examination room as they had dragging her in. It took all of her strength to look down the hallway as they started to approach her room. It seems to stretch on in front of her infinitely, making her dizzy.

She was practically thrown to her bed. She lay mostly horizontally, curled up in a fetal position as the orderlies cleaned up the broken glass that they had left in the room. Cassandra haphazardly watched as they did, and was sure she saw the woman smirk at her.

 

After Cassandra was returned to her room, her head was absolutely spinning. She found it difficult to concentrate on anything in particular, and when she did manage to string together a coherent thought, it was about the shadow men lurking in the corner of her room. She felt sick and weak, and that she had just lost almost a year’s worth of recovery in a single night.

It was hard to tell how much time had passed between her return and the next time her door opened. All Cassandra knew was that the woman, that foul orderly who had taken her books and her plants, and who had helped convince the head healer that Cassandra was crazy, was back in her room sometime after lights out.

“Come on Cassandra, get up,” the woman snapped at her, trying to pull Cassandra from her bed.

Cassandra jumped at the woman’s touch, hardly noticing that she had entered in the first place. She muttered something unintelligible and scooted away from the orderly.

“You stupid woman,” the orderly hissed, “come on! We’ve been ordered to evacuate the patients!”

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, Cassandra opened them once more and tried to focus on the dark hallway behind the orderly. There was a red-orange glow coming from the area to the right of Cassandra’s room. It took another moment before she realized that it was getting hard to breath in her room.

_They’re coming for me_ , Cassandra thought, though she wasn’t sure who _they_ were. _I’ve got to get out of here._

“If you’re going to make this hard—“ the orderly raised her wand and pointed it at Cassandra.

Panic set it. Her body tensed and her vision blurred, and Cassandra hadn’t even noticed as she raised her hand in defense. She wouldn’t recall shouting _Maljo_ until sometime later, when her mind cleared up.

However, she must have said it. Moments later, the orderly was on the ground, writhing in pain. Screaming was too painful, Cassandra knew from experience, so the woman could only lie on the ground and choke and sob as the curse took its hold on her.

In that instant, Cassandra had no idea what was happening to the woman. In her broken mind, she couldn’t fathom why the woman, her orderly, suddenly went into some sort of fit. Instead, she could only think, _it’s them. They did this._

Cassandra moved around her bed and stopped at the woman’s side long enough to take her wand and pull off the woman’s shoes. The smoke was becoming too thick see through, though she knew the hallways well enough to know exactly where to go to reach an emergency exit. Most of the remaining patients were moving towards the one that wasn’t blocked by the flames, so Cassandra ran the opposite way. Without a spare thought, she cause _Friggus Flamma,_ one of the few spells she could now confidently cast. She barely managed to get through the flames before the spell failed and singed her clothes. If another wizard had tried to cast it and bring a patient through, they probably wouldn’t have made it.

Patting down part of her burning pant leg, Cassandra threw herself at the door, which had magically unlocked once the fire alarms started sounding. As she rushed to join the mass of other people hurrying through the stairwell, her only blessing was the fact that she was wearing the normal clothes her mother brought her. The orderlies who weren’t familiar with her because of their work in different departments didn’t even spare her a second glance.

She stepped outside into the freezing cold and looked for the largest group of people. The orderlies were having a difficult time keeping people together and keeping them warm. Most were wearing nothing but slippers—Cassandra included. When she saw that no one was paying her much attention, she switched into the orderlies shoes.

Almost everyone stared up at the burning building. Cassandra had to believe that the patient, Antoni, couldn’t have survived the flames he had unwillingly created. The flames spread until the surrounding rooms were also swallowed up, her quarters included.

Her chest started to tighten as she realized the orderly may not have been able to escape.

_I’ve killed someone._

Cassandra’s muscles started to lock up and her breathing became shallow. If anyone noticed, they likely brushed it off as a side effect of the cold. She was standing with patients with normal ailments, after all, not the evacuated Evil Eye cursees. They had no reason to believe she was anyone other than a family member allowed to wait overnight with their kin.

The forest surrounding Swindlehurst wasn’t far away from her. If she could get to it rather unnoticed, she was confident that she had the ability survive the night in the snow. She knew enough of the plant life to manipulate it to create a temporary shelter and keep herself warm. In the morning, she could get to the next town over and figure out what to do.

Cassandra could only hope that Swindlehurst decided that she had died in the fire so that no one would come looking for her. From there on out… well, she wasn’t sure what she could do. She certainly couldn’t return home.

It took her a few tries to conjure up a gale strong enough to blow the lightly laying snow around enough to cause everyone to bow their heads. She took off running while they weren’t looking and sought shelter in the forest.

Once she was deep enough in, Cassandra stopped and leaned against a tree to catch her breath.

That was it. That was really it. Cassandra Schaefer had died in Swindlehurst. She’d have to become someone else.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me ages to finish this. I simply lost motivation. Well, there it is, a general background for Cassandra Schaefer (run 4). I've discussed this background with other people who are familiar with her in different runs, and their versions are quite different, so this is not applicable to anyone besides the 'related' character in NWM4. 
> 
> I may get around to writing another snippet regarding who Cassandra goes to for help, but I may not. We'll see. Thanks for reading!


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